Wanna Increase the Traffic and customer base of dailydeal site ? here comes the strategy which gone viral!!

ScoopStreet, a daily deal site of US has adopted a week’s Perk strategy, which is a part of their viral marketing, In which the customer can avail a free year of cab rides. To activate the deal, 25,000 people must sign up before the deal becomes active. While they haven’t hit this mark yet, it’s hard not imagine 25,000 New Yorkers not wanting to win $18,000 for a year of free cab rides. Two users will also win a second tier prize of one month of free cab rides, a $1,500 value.

The same strategy is been plagiarize in our country by localizing it and understanding the pulse of the masses(Ticketnew, Crazeal). Started campaigns to issue the free tickets of new movie releases and cashing on the greediness of people by showcasing Harley Davidson bike for free.

This sort of viral strategies spreads like a wildfire, penetrates deep into the masses and gains instant brand awareness and brand positioning in the market.

Even as we continue to wait for the Indian government’s ultra low-cost Aakash tablet, a slew of budget tablets from other manufacturers have arrived in the Indian market. The latest entrant in the budget tablet race is Attitude Daksha from Telmoco Development Labs Pvt. Priced at Rs. 5.399, the Attitude Daksha runs on the latest Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich.

The Attitude Daksha tablet has a seven-inch capacitive five-point touchscreen, 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and 512 MB DDR3 RAM. The device supports an HDMI port, microSD slot, 3.5 mm audio out, micro USB port and an OTG connector for 3G USB dongle. It also supports 1080p full HD video streaming and has dedicated 400 MHz GPU. It comes with a standard 0.3MP front facing camera and an optional 2MP camera. Daksha is powered by a 4,000 mAh battery, which is rated to deliver a back up of over six-hours with Wi-Fi on. Check out the detailed specifications of the new Daksha tablet in the image below.

The Attitude Daksha, meant for students and educational purposes, is likely to hit the shelves from May 15. Telmoco Development Labs is also planning to bid for the Aakash-2, the upgraded version of the original Aakash tablet. “With government subsidy and mass production, Attitude Daksha could compete with Aakash -2,” said Technopark-Technology Business Incubation Centre secretary and registrar K.C.Chandrasekharan Nair, after launching the product.

Of late we’ve seen a number of ICS-based budget tablets for the Indian market. Last day, we’d reported Karbonn Mobiles is also going to launch its Android 4.0.3 ICS-based tablet, SmartTab 1. Recently, budget tablets such as the Micromax Funbook, Zync Z990 and HCL ME U1Tab were launched with the latest ICS operating system.

Android started well in the field of Mobile Technology with its OS version 1.5 targeted for smartphones. Android OS was flexible enough for the handset manufacturers to embed the OS into a device with any kind of screen resolution. Later it evolved from 1.5 to 1.6 and then included the Google apis in the 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 which allowed us to use Google maps in a very efficient way. For a smartphone 2.3 was the last version. Later came the version of tablets starting from 3.0. And tablets with version 3.0 were really cool in performance and appearance. In short Android had different versions of OS for supporting smartphones and tablets. Now Android comes up with a unique OS that can be used for a smartphone as well as a tablet too. The craze created by Samsung Galaxy Note has been magnificent but with the unique set of Android 4.0 OS features, Samsung has launched the coolest looking smartphone+tablet “Samsung Galaxy Nexus”.

Checkout this cool video to know the amazing things a mobile with Android 4.0 OS can do. At the end of the video ask yourself a question definitely.

Next time what would you prefer to buy Samsung Galaxy Nexus or Apple iPhone?

Discover your next destination.

Where To? makes it incredibly easy to locate the closest steakhouse, bank branch, billiard club or anything else you may be looking for, at the drop of a hat! Finally you can find local businesses without any typing, using a slick, intuitive user experience.

Map & Browser: all integrated

With just a few taps, you can find local hits for any type of place you are looking for. Check the found places on the built-in map or in a list sorted by distance. Then call to make a reservation or check the homepage using the built-in web browser.

Augmented Reality

Explore a stunning new way of visualization with Where To? 3D¹. Your points of interest will be displayed on top of reality. It‘s more intuitive than ever to check out nearby locations. Watch the video and see it live in action.

Shake To Surprise

Not sure what you want for dinner tonight? Use “Shake to Surprise” to make the choice. Take a chance and find something new and exciting!

Ratings & Reviews

“Is the food delicious? The service great?” Where To? collects and displays ratings and reviews from all Where To? and Google users. New reviews can be shared on Facebook and Twitter.

With the latest Android Market update, our editorial team can use your 1024 x 500 “Featured Image” to promote your app on tablets, phones, and the Web. The image can be used on the home page on all versions of Android Market (Web, tablet and phone), on your product page in the Web and tablet versions, and on current and future top-level Android Market pages on phones.

Creating a Featured Image that will do a great job of highlighting your app requires special design consideration.

Not Really Optional

While many promotional assets are listed as “optional” for the publishing site, we strongly recommend treating them as required. To start with, a Featured Image is required if your app is to be featured anywhere within Android Market. They’re a good idea anyhow; they enhance your product page, making your game or app more attractive to end-users (and more likely to be considered for featuring by our editorial team).

There’s nothing optional about the size, either; it has to be 1024 x 500 pixels.

Do’s and Dont’s

Your graphic is not an ad, it’s a teaser. It’s a place for bold, creative promotional images.

Vivid background colors work best. Black and white are problems because those are the backgrounds used by the mobile-device and Web versions of Android Market.

Limit Text to your app name and maybe a few additional descriptive words. Anything else will be unreadable on phones, anyhow.

Do: Make the graphic fun
and enticing.

Don’t: Create a text-heavy
advertising-style graphic.

Do: Use colors that stand out on
black or white backgrounds.

Don’t: Let the graphic fade into
the background.

Do: Promote your brand prominently.

Don’t: Overload the graphic with details.

Scaling

Your image has to be designed to scale; it will need to look good both in a full-size Web browser and on a little handset. You can rely on the aspect ratio being constant, but not the size. Here’s a tip: Try resizing your image down to 1 inch in width. If it still looks good and conveys your brand message, you have a winner.

On the Web:

On a tablet:

On a big phone:

On a small phone:

More Dont’s

Device imagery is tempting, but becomes dated fast, and may be inappropriate if your user’s device looks entirely different.

In-app screenshots are inappropriate because your product page already includes a place for these.

Just using your app icon is a failure of imagination. You have more room; put it to good use!

Consider the Context

Given the size of the form factor, the phone is the most challenging channel for your image. Below we have both the “good” and “bad” sample images in that context:

Don’t Forget

A 1024 x 500 Featured Image is required for feature placement consideration. Don’t miss out on the opportunity!

Ice Cream Sandwich or Android 4.o is certainly going to change the face of Android phones in the coming days. The Operating System that can be used in both tablets and smart phones, is being touted as the best thing to have happened to mobile phone industry.

So far just a single smart phone has been launched with this OS, but other smart phones including Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Galaxy S2, Motorola Droid Bionic and many others are going to get the update pretty soon. ASUS Transformer Prime will be the first tablet to get it. We already know how huge is the demand for ASUS Transformer Prime. It is the tablet that got the biggest preorders when it comes to Android tablets. So far Google had different OS for tablets and smart phones. Android tablets used 3.0 Honeycomb for tablets and 2.3 Gingerbread for smartphones. But now it has a unified OS.

Google’s Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the only smart phone to have got the Ice Cream Sandwich pre-installed. Experts are unanimous that ICS is the most refined Android version ever. It comes with a redesigned user interface, face lock system and a unified identity – both for tablets and smartphones.

Everyone is rather excited about the new OS from Google. Emily Price while writing in USA Today says, “Ice Cream Sandwich is a big deal, and it differs from every Android operating system before it. Ice Cream Sandwich blends parts of Gingerbread and parts of Honeycomb into a single version of Android that can be used on both tablets and smartphones”.

One important aspect of the new operating system is that ICS has brought up native screenshot capabilities to the Android platform. A user doesn’t really need to install third party add-ons on his or her smartphone to make it capture screenshots. The screenshot capturing feature comes preloaded with the software. Meanwhile the work of taking screenshots on an Ice Scream Sandwich device is as simple as taking a photo from the smart phone. You are just supposed to press on the Volume Down + Power buttons to capture what is on your screen then. The image will be stored in .png format in your image gallery, which you can later use for other purposes.

Facial recognition is an important aspect of Android Sandwich. Android 4.0 introduces a completely new approach to securing a device, making each person’s device even more personal — Face Unlock is a new screen-lock option that lets users unlock their devices with their faces. It takes advantage of the device front-facing camera and state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to register a face during setup and then to recognize it again when unlocking the device. Users just hold their devices in front of their faces to unlock, or use a backup PIN or pattern.

A reviewer while writing about Face unlock says, “It is yet another revolutionary feature of Android 4.0. Users can now lock their ICS devices with the much appreciated facial recognition system. The ultra security feature helps you secure up your device and valuable data inside it. The device can only be unlocked once you appear in front of it. The intriguing facial recognition feature has been implemented well on the Ice Cream Sandwich”.

Another important aspect of the OS is that it is very useful for visually impaired people as well. Several new features greatly enhance the accessibility of Android 4.0 for blind or visually impaired users. Most important is a new explore-by-touch mode that lets users navigate without having to see the screen. Touching the screen once triggers audible feedback that identifies the UI component below; a second touch in the same component activates it with a full touch event. The new mode is especially important to support users on new devices that use virtual buttons in the System Bar, rather than dedicated hardware buttons or trackballs. It is going to help the users a lot.

Another important feature of ICS is a feature called RocketLauncher, or Android Dreams. It allows users access to the apps of an Android device from its screen saver. For immediate access to apps, you just have to tap on an icon on screen saver. All apps in your device zoom past screen saver, thus making it so easy to launch them without going to home screen.

Yet one more useful feature of Ice Cream Sandwich is Android Beam. It is a truly great app that makes sharing across two NFC-enabled devices a child’s play. Android Beam allows people instantly exchange favorite apps, contacts, music, videos — almost anything. It’s incredibly simple and convenient to use — there’s no menu to open, application to launch, or pairing needed. Just touch one Android-powered phone to another, then tap to send.

You can also view the presentation on Android 4.0 OS by clicking the following link.

What is the best task killer app for Android? Well, the answer is none of them. Sure there are some nice apps out there for killing tasks, but the fact is you just don’t need one with Android.

To clear things up about this, Google’s Android developers blog has finally put this debate to rest about why a task killer is unnecessary, as well as why there are certain services that run in the background all the time, I’m sure at one time or another you’ve seen them and asked yourself “Why do those services keep starting after I kill them?”. Below you can read about when applications stop.

When does an android application “stop”?

A common misunderstanding about Android multitasking is the difference between a process and an application. In Android these are not tightly coupled entities: applications may seem present to the user without an actual process currently running the app; multiple applications may share processes, or one application may make use of multiple processes depending on its needs; the process(es) of an application may be kept around by Android even when that application is not actively doing something.

The fact that you can see an application’s process “running” does not mean the application is running or doing anything. It may simply be there because Android needed it at some point, and has decided that it would be best to keep it around in case it needs it again. Likewise, you may leave an application for a little bit and return to it from where you left off, and during that time Android may have needed to get rid of the process for other things.

A key to how Android handles applications in this way is that processes don’t shut down cleanly. When the user leaves an application, its process is kept around in the background, allowing it to continue working (for example downloading web pages) if needed, and come immediately to the foreground if the user returns to it. If a device never runs out of memory, then Android will keep all of these processes around, truly leaving all applications “running” all of the time.

Of course, there is a limited amount of memory, and to accommodate this Android must decide when to get rid of processes that are not needed. This leads to Android’s process lifecycle, the rules it uses to decide how important each process is and thus the next one that should be dropped. These rules are based on both how important a process is for the user’s current experience, as well as how long it has been since the process was last needed by the user.

Once Android determines that it needs to remove a process, it does this brutally, simply force-killing it. The kernel can then immediately reclaim all resources needed by the process, without relying on that application being well written and responsive to a polite request to exit. Allowing the kernel to immediately reclaim application resources makes it a lot easier to avoid serious out of memory situations.

If a user later returns to an application that’s been killed, Android needs a way to re-launch it in the same state as it was last seen, to preserve the “all applications are running all of the time” experience. This is done by keeping track of the parts of the application the user is aware of (the Activities), and re-starting them with information about the last state they were seen in. This last state is generated each time the user leaves that part of the application, not when it is killed, so that the kernel can later freely kill it without depending on the application to respond correctly at that point.

In some ways, Android’s process management can be seen as a form of swap space: application processes represent a certain amount of in-use memory; when memory is low, some processes can be killed (swapped out); when those processes are needed again, they can be re-started from their last saved state (swapped in).

MediaValet is Selected as one of three Finalists for Coveted Microsoft Award

MediaValet, and its sister company VRX Studios, have been selected as one of three Finalists for the ‘Windows Azure Platform ISV Partner of the Year’ award in the ‘Emerging Technologies and Innovation Awards’ category of Microsoft’s 2011 IMPACT Awards.

The ninth annual IMPACT Awards recognize excellence within Microsoft’s partner community in Canada. The 2011 IMPACT Award finalists will be honoured at a gala event taking place on November 30th, 2011, in Toronto, ON.

Cerebrata, Udaipur based Microsoft BizSpark startup, today announced that it has been acquired by Red Gate. Cerebrata offers products for managing applications on Windows Azure, and is one of its kind company based out of India.

The financials of the deal are not disclosed.

Entrepreneur and Founder of Cerebrata, Gaurav Mantri said “Our entire team will continue to operate from Udaipur for the next one year with core focus on development. With Red Gate coming on board, we at least don’t have to worry about sales and marketing of our products”

Gaurav added, “Red Gate has immense amount of respect among the developer community. I have been interacting with Red Gate founder, Neil Davidson for quite some time now, and he has helped us quite a bit in pricing our products. We believe that they are going to take good care of our products”

It may be too early to decide who would actually win the battle. Cloud Computing is in its nascent stage and hasn’t gone past the awareness phase. Not many decision makers understand the terminology of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS and the differences between Public Cloud, Private Cloud and Hybrid Cloud. This is an attempt to analyze the current scenario and align the offerings of major Cloud Service Providers with the needs of the ecosystem.

Indian Subcontinent is a very unique and a potent geography for platform vendors. The reason for that is the presence of an end to end IT ecosystem. Let’s take a closer look at who is a part of this thriving ecosystem. At a broad level, there are entities that buy software and services. Let’s call them ‘Customers’. Then, we have another entity that develops and sells software or services. Let’s call them ‘Service Providers’. And finally, we have an entity which is the ‘Community’ that cuts across the ‘Customers’ and the ‘Service Providers’. Let me elaborate more on these three entities.

Customers – This entity is the most critical and influential. Customers pay the Service Providers and keep the ecosystem healthy and active. You can easily attach a brand name to all the categories that I am mentioning here. Think of ICICI, ONGC, BPCL, Bharti Enterprises, Reliance Industries, Maruti Udyog, RPG, Aditya Birla Group, Apollo Healthcare, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Yash Raj Films, NDTV and TV18 to name a few.

Service Providers – Many countries invest in IT. But India not only invests in IT as a customer but it is also the home for many global players who build great software products or provide niche services to their global clientele. Some of the large brands that you can associate with this entity include Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Mahindra Satyam, Cognizant, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Google, SAP, Tally, Ramco Systems, Wings, Persistent, Symphony, Hungama, Web Chutney, Web Dunia, Rediff and CricInfo to name a few. Here is the classification of this entity:

Community – This entity is special. This consists of multiple groups of individuals coming from both the entities that we discussed above. Think of software developers who write code for an internal IT application of a bank and another developer who contributes to the next major version of an ERP and yet another developer who is a freelancer. Though their nature of work is different, their needs are exactly the same. Similarly, we have IT administrators. Another important community is the academic community. Some of the renowned and the most respected professors advise banks and the government on their IT strategy and roadmap. These communities are very important for the software platform vendors. The influencers present in these communities can impact the platform adoption in the medium to longer term. Not convinced? Think of this – today’s developer is tomorrow’s decision maker and can decide which platform and tools to adopt for his team. Non-IT related individuals who are knowledge workers and consumers are also a part of the community. Here is a list of a few communities:

If you are wondering what all this classification has to do with Cloud adoption in India, let me explain you why this matters.

Cloud is clearly the meta-platform or the platform of the platforms. If Windows or Linux can host Java or .NET to run line-of-business applications, Cloud actually hosts that Windows OS or Linux! It is very evident that for the success of any platform, it is important to have a strategy that can positively impact most of the ecosystem. Here, I give the credit to Microsoft. Microsoft is hugely successful because it got the platform story right. In the mid 90s, it made developers rally behind Visual Basic and then subsequently around the .NET platform. It enabled and empowered ISVs to develop applications on top of Windows and Office and let them target the huge customer base. Microsoft also opened the doors to System Integrators at multiple levels to customize and implement its products. In the current context, Apple is reemphasizing this phenomenon through the iPhone platform. Millions of apps are being developed and sold through the AppStore to all the iPhone customers and a lot of developers are making money through this. Bottom line – Whoever figures out the right story that impacts the maximum players of the ecosystem will win the battle!

Now, let’s turn the scene back to India. Why should Cloud vendors take India seriously? Here are some points:

1) India hasn’t hit the saturation levels yet. Unlike Americas and EMEA, India and APAC have ample scope for IT adoption. This market has a huge, untapped potential at every level – Let that be enterprise, Public Sector or ITES.

2) India is a playground and a test bed to pilot strategic adoption techniques. No other geography will give the platform vendor access to the whole ecosystem. Want to engage with ISVs and excite them to develop on your platform? Well, India is the place to go. Do you need a mature developer community to pilot a SDK adoption plan? Want to setup a Center of Excellence to showcase the capabilities of your platform? Go, talk to Infosys or Wipro!

3) The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) story is just warming up. Some of the inherent problems that India has been grappling with can now turn into a great opportunity for Cloud vendors. Think of how you can empower the clusters of small businesses through the Cloud and you have a winning story there. Convince the academic institutes to subscribe to Cloud Services that provide student / teacher / parent collaboration on subscription. Read CK Prahlad’s ‘The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid’ to realize the potential that the Indian SME and the consumer has.

Having seen the uniqueness that India possesses, it is time for me to introduce the players of the game. I personally feel the following vendors have the potential to participate in this (listed in alphabetic order):

Amazon – As a developer and Cloud Computing Strategist, I have tremendous respect for Amazon. Amazon scores high in their mature developer APIs and comprehensive service offering. As on date, they are the only provider to offer everything from a VM (EC2) to CDN (CloudFront) as a service on subscription. As an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, Amazon can have a meaningful discussion with any entity all the way from the government to a startup. They do not interfere with the customer’s platform decision and in fact it is the only company that has gracefully partnered with the key players of the industry including Microsoft, IBM, Ubuntu, RedHat, Oracle and SUN. But Amazon lacks a solid India story. They do not have a sales and business development team in India and thus missing the opportunity to strengthen the engagement with the customers, partners and the community. The day Amazon sets up their Indian office, I am very sure that they will give the competition a run for their money.

Google – This is 100% pure Cloud company – so much so that they want their browser to be the OS. Google plays in two areas – 1) Software as a Service (SaaS) and, 2) Platform as a Service (PaaS). Through Google Apps, they have targeted the enterprise to switch them from Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino. Google’s SaaS strategy for India is like an undercurrent. They do not make much noise but have been quietly nibbling away Microsoft’s Exchange and Office revenue. They are currently targeting the SME segment which is a low hanging fruit for Google Apps migration. Google lacks proper partner angle. They do not have a model by which they can delegate the pre-sales and deployment to an array of skilled partners. On the developer engagement model, I run the Google’s developer group in Bangalore called GTUG. I have also felt that Google’s effort to evangelize App Engine to developer community is not scalable enough. Not many Indian developers are familiar and comfortable designing and deploying applications on GAE. Their engagement model for System Integrators is largely opaque. All in all, Google can do better in strengthening its partner model and developer engagement.

IBM – As on date, IBM is not a player on the Public Cloud front. Though they have opened up a developer beta for Public Cloud and also have paid IBM AMIs on Amazon EC2, IBM still focuses on the Private Cloud. With their strong partnership model and as a long-term enterprise player, they have a very credible and convincing story. IBM is leveraging its relationship with Global System Integrators (GSIs) from India to influence some of the large Private Cloud deployments. Their recent announcement of Lotus Live as a SaaS offering is yet get traction in India. They have a tough battle ahead with Microsoft Online Services and Google Apps fiercely competing in this space. IBM shows very little love towards the community. They manage the influencers pretty well but do not care much for developers and IT Pros. Their developerWorks portal is an amazing resource for developers. But they can do better on the developer advocacy and evangelism front.

Microsoft – Microsoft is slowly unfolding its Cloud strategy in India. This is the most crucial time for Microsoft. As they figure out how to gracefully transition from packaged software to the services world, they also need to help the ecosystem go through a smooth transition. True to its tradition, Microsoft is following a surround strategy – have the right portfolio and articulate the right story to all the entities in the ecosystem. Windows Azure Platform has just gone live and they have been enticing the developer community to get a flavor of it. They also have a strong story around the hosters through the Dynamic Data Center initiative. Windows Server Hyper-V and a suite of management tools like System Center Virtual Machine Manager enable the Private Cloud for the enterprise. ISVs and startups are lured to embrace Azure through the BizSpark and related programs. Their Online Services / BPOS and Hosted CRM are targeted towards the SME segment. Microsoft is only as strong as IBM in the GSI space. All in all, I rate Microsoft as a strong contender in India within the Cloud Services segment.

Salesforce.com – As pioneers in the space of SaaS, Salesforce.com has high expectations from the Indian market. They started on the right note by targeting the SME market. Their competition primarily comes from Zoho and Microsoft Hosted CRM. Salesforce.com has partnered with the major SIs in India and has strong alliance teams to up-sell and customize its CRM software. Their PaaS offering in the form of force.com is yet to reach the Indian developers. I got my hands dirty on force.com. But being a hardcore developer, I found it to be limiting in many aspects. Salesforce.com has a niche and unique offering and they have a great potential in the future.

Oracle / SUN – I combine them at this point because they sail on the same boat. Both the companies made a lot of noise around the Cloud initially and then lost the steam. Oracle is unarguably the preferred database vendor in India for the enterprise, public sector and ISVs. But due to the lack of story around Cloud, they are losing the ground. As of now Oracle’s only Cloud offering is through AMIs on Amazon EC2. But I don’t consider that as a unique strategy from Oracle. Today every DB is available on EC2 in one form or the other. They just started to talk about Oracle as a Service (OaaS). But that’s yet to become main stream. SUN is missing the boat due to the flux around its alliance with Oracle. Look at their Cloud pitch to get a sense of their strategy. Its just not convincing enough! Before SUN could do anything with MySQL, Amazon has gone live with its Relational Database Service (RDS) based on the same MySQL. We have to wait and watch to see where this duo is headed in the Cloud.

VMware – This is the dark horse in the Cloud Computing segment. Having positioned it as a strong Virtualization platform vendor, they became the natural choice of Private Cloud for many customers in India. With its partnership with EMC, VMware is all set to conquer the Indian Private Cloud market. They have an end to end story that is very convincing to the customer. With its presence in India and strong partnership model, they are giving IBM and Microsoft a tough competition in the Datacenter Virtualization and Private Cloud space. They were quick and smart enough to re-brand themselves as the mature Private Cloud vendor. VMware vSphere is a robust and a proven Virtualization platform for the enterprise. VMware will continue to lead the Indian Virtualization market. But their developer story is very weak. Though I personally like their vCloud API & SDK, they have a long way to go in convincing the developer community.

This is purely based on my analysis and research of the market. If you happen to be a representative of any of the above brands and do not agree with my viewpoint, I encourage you to leave a comment. I am open to a discussion.

PS – The ‘Future Potential’ assessment is based on the type of service offering and the focus segment of the vendor in India. This assessment does not reflect the global potential.